Conversion: How a Successful Black Hat SEO Turned Content

The Google “Gods” hack job spam team puts out the tweet. We just took down “Will’s Network.” (The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Innocent)

I called my Russian Buddy. Dude. What Do I Do?… Silence on the other end of the phone….

I Don’t Want To Expose Everyone… BUT

Most of the “Hero’s” that you see online are trading leads. They are also trading links. Links are bought and sold everyday.

Everyone in the “SEO” and “Content” game all know each other. We talk. We discuss what is working versus what isn’t working.

The head guys sell leads for $$ to lower guys. The guys with killer content share the ones below and vice versa. It is a big networking event. Luckily for me I was outbound (old school insurance sells) so prospecting and influencer marketing was all I knew. I suddenly fit right in.

In Fact, With a Huge Personality & Super Likable Demeanor, I was a SuperStar!

If you read this entire post (most of you will not) then you will see that I will not do that for this blog, ever. It would break one of the rules I have for coming back online.

Back to the point.

Basically most of the links and “White” Hat SEO super powers (and probably worship like I did) that you think are doing amazing are actually just buying links.

They are sharing and trading.

Once I had determined my hero’s were all doing it, guess what. I jumped in.

Let’s rewind and start from the beginning though…

This is a rather short version of this story. I will someday write a book and tell all of the crazy tales. This article shows a short glimpse of why I have been successful, mostly in spite of my choices, in my online marketing. I have recently found a new level (exposed) of success. I will get into that as well. If this is your first time to visit my site. Make sure and say hi.

Side Note: I was laughing today on the phone with a friend at this exact problem. It still exists. Crazy Right?

My First Dealings With Online Marketing

I started by just realizing through (4 hour work week) books that online was a chance to have explosive growth. I was, at the time, an outbound sales specialist. I could make a call center, or any outside sales, absolutely thrive. I made a decent living and had huge ambitions.

I was also, as I still am, a Hero worshiper. I loved to see the top earners and producers and wonder what they have that I don’t?

This would drive me to find ways to expand my current scope. My little reality was going to expand.

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I Have Something Online – Where Are All the People?

So I started my own personal blog one night. I literally figured out wordpress and posted a few articles that I wrote. At the time I had a friend that passed away that day.

I remember growing up with him. His older brother and I were close at one time. He was strong safety on my football team. He died while boxing. I hadn’t seen him in 4 years.

I thought, since it was fresh news, that I would write about it. I posted the fact that he died and how close we were. I went into detail and even linked to all the articles about it.

Do I need to insert the cricket song again? Looks Like It…

That’s right. I got nothing.

It seemed like a full day of setting up and trying to figure out how to put analytics “codes’ into the website. I didn’t know about plugins yet…

That is when I decided that I obviously do not know something about the internet. Something that could make me rank. There were a ton of people clicking on this boxing story. People tweeting about it. I had the best content with a great story and … Crickets. Daggum Crickets!

See at the time I just assumed that if you had information on your blog that people would find it. I think I had even read that. (Probably in one of those $29 dollar ecourses to solve all your income problems).

I realized that Ranking would drive income if you could target the visitors and then target what they wanted to buy. I understood that even if I could just get their phone number… Game Over. I could close anyone.

Time To Get Into the Thick of IT!

I will jump forward a few years. I discovered SEO. I discovered a few underground forums. I got trained by a Black Hat (Russian) PRO. I bought and sold SAPE before the rest of the world knew it existed.

I studied, read, and broke down the Page Rank Theory by Larry Page. His patent for Google.

All of the sudden, making something rank was boring. It was easy. I was making some ridiculous money ranking people’s sites. I worked on big sites, small sites, and scummy sites (payday loans etc.)

It was not really that fun. The only people that you could talk “work” with was other Black Hat Pro’s. That was of course the lowest (mostly not all) of the low.

I made a few friends out of that world that I am still thankful for.

What Were We Doing?

It was really simple. We each had our schemes… to inject a link into a Major Government Website and Them Never See it… (THAT WAS BY FAR THE COOLEST I EVER KNEW HAPPENED)

Often Times you would just have machines running offshore making more sites and spamming Tiered Links.

Side Bars with links filled to the brim (white out the words) all sorts of themes, footers, and software. We also owned over 1,000 sites that were “autoblogs.” They were dropped domains that had “link juice.”

We also had some government and education sites on “payroll.”

We could basically take the on page under our control. (I still know tricks that I will never tell here)

We would then diversify linking.

Then the final swoop would be a round of Russian What We Called Mad Links (SAPE), Do Follow Links from Our Blogs, and Injections with the key terms we were aiming for.

This would result in websites ranking for crazy terms and out of no where!

We ranked for backlinks and buy backlinks on a bet within 2 months. That was crazy competition.

Last Trick was to buy Failed Software and Tech Companies domains as their bubble was bursting. Normally these didn’t go back to the Venture Capitalist. Even if they did… They didn’t want them. You could buy (What would be a DA 80 site now) for a few grand.

Then just homepage blog roll and have autocontent producing links to your sites that all link to other sites and somewhere down that line is your money site that ranks above Google for the word Google…. Or so you imagine.

What Matters in Link Building?

It all comes down to one thing. The page quality that the link is present on. If you have a page that has 20k solid do follow links pointing to it. Then having 1 of the only links Do Follow pointing to your site from that page… Well guess what. You just hit pay dirt.

We ranked with 100 links often once we had the on page, link diversity, and other factors out of the way.

It was all fabricated. Literally we would have zero traffic while building the site up.

The articles were written by “someone” and just posted.

I even remember ranking a site that the blogroll actually said, “If you are reading this I am sorry, this is filler content to make Google Happy. What you want is on the home page.”

What Happened?

I remember it like it was yesterday. A friend (a real one) that was doing the same thing as I was calls me. He ask me what the hell did I do? He was devastated.

He had ranked his mom’s cleaning service recently using my network. His mom’s lively hood was dependent on my links. I had never thought of that before.

It crushed me. I had just hurt (unintentionally) someone else’s family. He was mad and super frustrated (ready to kill me) for what happened the next few days.

The Announcement Was Out

Then the Google “Gods” hack job spam team puts out the tweet. We just took down “Will’s Network.” (The Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Innocent)

I called my Russian Buddy. Silence was on the other end of the phone. I asked him, “What do I do?”

How I Got There…

During the forum learning and finding someone to train me I had found this mad Russian that lived in Australia.

I call him mad because he was a genius. He had actually read all the Google Patents. I later did the same thing.

He understood exactly (almost like he had written it) the google algorithm.

He could look at a term and a site (page) and tell you what to do in order to rank. He was right about 95% of the time!

He had taught me. He trained me.

How I Had Struck the Deal

I told him that I would work for training. I completed his client work at night. In return he trained me.

At first he trained me how to complete his client’s work. Then he trained me on another level. How to rank anything ever.

He even taught me what he called. “Hug a Tree and Dream of Content and They Will Come.”

It was amazing. I didn’t realize how powerful it was until I ranked something crazy!

I Went After the Biggest of Them All, Won But Failed

It took almost my entire network and 2 others that I borrowed. I ranked for the term “Online Shopping.”

I was on the front page on Yahoo and Google for 4 months. I was in the 1st spot of Google for two whole weeks.

Sales for that site went through the roof. It was crazy. The guy that owned it (partnered with me) was freaking out.

Then that twitter announcement came out. It was all done.

I was done.

I had hurt a friends mom’s business.

I couldn’t dare to do anything online again?

What Brought Me Out of Retirement

I have friends. I know for some of you that is shocking… LOL

I realized that a few years had went by and I still had a lot left to give. I had a ton to teach about conversion. I could still write amazing. I wanted to help people. Some what to repay for that mom that I had hurt. Maybe somehow it could make right some of the wrongs.

I also decided I was going to build an empire the “Content” style. It was more of a challenge for me than it was necessary.

My brain loves puzzles. I get bored when I have conquered something. Online had felt conquered until I changed the rules.

My rules now are only content, only white hat, and only relationships.

Since you are here, it looks like my plan is starting to work.

I will fill in some of the gaps in this story later on. Feel free to ask me any specific questions in the comments below.

BTW, I do drop some of those crazy how to rank points in my members area… Just Saying

Will Robins

Husband and Father, Will focuses on family first under God.If you are searching for an engaged audience, the kind we all dream of, then you have found the right website. Will uses a personality with amazing salesmanship in his teaching.He focuses on how successful websites have grown their viewers and engagement.